This attempt, which might have led to monotheism, came to nothing; on this point the Hindoos were behind the Greeks and Romans, who with their polytheism had a presiding deity, viz., Zeus and Jupiter.
“When we thus see the god Dyaus antiquated by Indra, and Indra himself almost denied, we might expect in India the same catastrophe which in Iceland the poets of the Edda always predicted—the twilight of the gods preceding the destruction of the world. We seem to have reached the stage when henotheism, after trying in vain to grow into an organised polytheism on the one side, or into an exclusive monotheism on the other, would by necessity end in atheism; yet atheism is not the last word of the Indian religion.”[108]
What is atheism?
CHAPTER XI
MAN’S CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION
“No one sufficiently recognises the power of reason.”
—St Thomas Aquinas.
“De nos jours, nous mouquons encore plus de raison que de religion.”
—Fenelon.
This question: “What is atheism?” has aroused me with a start. Led aside as I had been by many beautiful, true, and striking thoughts, which I noted as they presented themselves to me; being also very preoccupied by depressing observations that I had made on my chronic inability to turn them to account, I lost sight of the fact that it is not sufficient to write and think at will merely, without definite plan, not keeping the goal in sight. This is my eleventh chapter, and I see with dismay that it is likely to exceed the two which precede it in length, and that it follows one concerned more with the repetition of words often spoken and seldom understood. I fear that I lack method.
During our own time we have seen a school arise, the Historical School; it was heralded in Germany by such men as Niebuhr, the two Humboldts, Bopp—the author of the first Comparative Grammar—Grimm, and many others. This School shows that an uninterrupted continuity connects what has been thought of old with what is being thought at present; that there is no break between the present and the past; and that the difficulties which are presented to us by the study of the present philosophical problems, would in a great measure disappear, if we knew under what form these same problems presented themselves to man for the first time.
The Historical School advances step by step with the study of comparative philology; this latter has shown that at the beginning the number of words was very small; they lay, as it were, side by side, before man’s eyes, as evenly and as regularly as the threads on a weaver’s loom. But gradually, on account of our neglect, and our many misunderstandings, the idea contained in these words became entangled, and we have ceased to follow the course of the thread; the words have remained in our memory, but the meaning has changed; they may even have several meanings which contradict each other; the result is that we are ignorant of many things it would be well for us to know with certainty.
All problems whether of philosophy or of philology, are best solved by the historical method; let us bravely face each obscure question to which we have no key; each doubtful term the meaning of which is lost, and bid all retrace their steps in the path by which they arrived at us; avoiding the peril of the idle worker who has a theory, and a remedy ready for everything; and the walks in the country of dreams which have no chart to direct travellers.